Harmonix: 'We Have Not Abandoned The Rock Band Franchise'

Thought the music game genre was dead? Think again. If Harmonix's chiefs are to be believed, Rock Band is far from dead, although it will almost certainly see 'fundamental creative reinterpretation'.

'We're thinking hard about that, how to move it forward,' stated Senior VP of product development, Greg LoPiccolo. 'I'm confident in saying on the record that we have not abandoned the Rock Band franchise, we think there's a lot of creative life left in it, and we're extremely excited in the creative opportunities we think are there.'

Speaking to Giant Bomb, CEO Alex Rigopolous suggested that whilst Harmonix are very much concerned with maintainging the strong relationship and consumer base they've built up with their weekly DLC offerings, they are looking towards the future too.

'In the longer term, looking into next year, we're actually considering fairly fundamental creative reinterpretation of what the Rock Band business is. We're committed to the franchise, but when I think that when we do things with it in the future, it's going to be a pretty dramatic departure from what we've done before.'

Co-founder Eran Egozy reasserted this notion that the studio will be taking Rock Band in a completely new direction, that adding more and more bizarre instruments into the mix won't be the way forward, and there may well be a few surprises to come.

'It's interesting,' adds Egozy. 'We do have plans on where we're going to go with Rock Band and how we plan to expand it. All I'll say for now is that it isn't what you think. You might assume we're going to add saxophone or something along those lines, but no, the kind of direction we're planning on taking Rock Band, the kind of innovation we have in mind, is taking it in a different direction, one that's more suitable to the kind of environment we're in, what people are doing now, what they're interested in playing now, versus, say, 2007. It's more than ideas. We are working on it, and we have forward progress. It's an exciting, fresh take on it. I'll leave it at that.'